Sustainable Choices in Your Pocket: A Conversation with Podcast Climate Confident

Carey Brown
June 8, 2023

Commons' CEO Sanchali Pal joined host Tom Raftery of Climate Confident to discuss how the Commons app is empowering individuals to take climate action. Below is a trancript of the episode.

You can listen to the full episode here, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts.

Sustainable Choices in Your Pocket: A Deep Dive into the Commons App


[00:00:00] Tom Raftery: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Climate Confident Podcast. My name is Tom Raftery and with me on the show today, I have my special guest, Sanchali. Sanchali, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself? 

[00:00:13] Sanchali Pal: Thank you, Tom. Thanks so much for having me. I'm Sanchali. I'm the founder and CEO of Commons, and I'm so happy to be here. 

[00:00:20] Tom Raftery: Fantastic. And what is Commons? 

[00:00:24] Sanchali Pal: Commons is an app that helps people use the power of their spending to create a more sustainable world. Essentially, it's a mobile app that allows you to track, reduce and offset the emissions of everything you buy and I built it after my own personal journey of tracking my carbon footprint manually for many years.

Finding it to be a very difficult experience, but also a very rewarding one. One that allowed me to build a healthier and more sustainable life. And so I built the tool to make it easy for anyone to access that. I think tracking your carbon footprint and managing carbon as a metric should be as easy as managing our dollars or managing our calories.

[00:01:01] Tom Raftery: Okay. And first of all, I guess why, why did you start on this carbon tracking journey initially? What was the, the genesis of that?

[00:01:13] Sanchali Pal: It actually started for me when I was in college. I was a senior in college and I saw the documentary Food Inc. I happened to see that documentary when I was, I was an economics major and I was also the manager in my dining hall.

And it got me thinking about the power of our food choices. And I wanted to know, there must be some through line between the choices I'm making in my life, and these larger systems that I'm studying in school and I wanna change. So what is that link and which of my choices matter if any? So I started using carbon tracking as a way to, to look at that through line.

And what I found was that my choices do matter, but maybe not in the ways that I expected. After I saw the movie, I felt like, oh my gosh, I have to be vegetarian and I have to do that for the rest of my life. But what I realized. After carbon tracking was that every meal matters and it, it's the cutting down from 12 times a week, which is how I was eating meat before to one meal a week.

That's the biggest delta in my carbon footprint. That additional marginal one meal a week doesn't make a huge impact. So, okay, I could still keep meat in my life for the rest of my life, but drastically reduce my meat consumption and have a big carbon impact. And so that's basically what I've did. Over the, over the last five years I've I've eaten about one meat meal a week or rather, sorry. Over the last 10 years, I've eaten one meat meal a week, and over that time I've taken five cars off the road from a carbon perspective. Just through that one action. And I, I continued carbon tracking over other parts of my life. I started to expand my Excel spreadsheet into my travel and into my home energy use.

And over six or seven years of making those choices, I started to reduce my emissions by about 30% from my starting point. And I actually was saving money. I was saving about $2,000 a year by doing that. Oh, nice. And I felt healthier, happier, like my life was more aligned with my values. So. I, I discovered that carbon tracking when used in conjunction with understanding a person's lifestyle could actually be a tool for living, a more abundant life or a more fulfilling life.

And if all of us did that together, that's, this is pretty massive impact we're talking about. 65% of global emissions are actually influenced by household spending. So we together through these massive shifts can make a big impact. And that's what I, I set out to build Commons to do was to make that easy because no one wants to use an X Excel spreadsheet to manage their life.

[00:03:39] Tom Raftery: And how, where were you sourcing the data for the emissions that you were tracking? 

[00:03:45] Sanchali Pal: So initially I was just doing it myself through online research. I ended up taking one course on carbon tracking, which helped me but with the tool itself, we actually have been working with experts since day one with academics at M I T and Yale as well as our own team who has expertise in this area.

And we combine data sets from national, local, and regional data sets. So for instance, we use information on US level emissions for wooden furniture. Let's say, say you made a purchase at a furniture store, that would be, we would use a US. A national emissions estimate, but say you purchase gasoline, we would use a local zip code level estimate for the price of gasoline in your area that day.

And then we combine that with information that the user provides us about themselves. Not only their financial transaction data, if they choose to connect their credit or debit card, but also some the aspects of their lifestyle. For instance, how often they eat meat will affect the carbon footprint of their grocery purchases.

[00:04:45] Tom Raftery: Okay. And so you've mentioned it's an app and you've mentioned the possibility of connecting debit or credit cards. Walk me through the app itself in a little more detail. Obviously it's, I'm guessing it's Android and iOS, and you download it from one of the app stores. What happens after that? 

[00:05:03] Sanchali Pal: Yes, it's Android and iOS.

It's available in the US and Canada. You download it. The app will ask you if you're interested in tracking your carbon footprint. If you are, you can connect your credit or debit cards to the app. We use the API Plaid, which is the same API that Venmo uses, Robinhood uses, all of our major FinTech apps, use for secure banking connections and we read transaction level data.

And output the carbon emissions of every transaction that you make. So we might see that you spent $50 at the gas station and in Oakland, California that day, the price of gasoline was $5 a gallon. So you bought 10 gallons of gasoline and will give you an emissions estimate associated with that purchase.

For something like groceries, it's a little less precise. We see that you spent a hundred dollars on groceries. We know that you eat meat one meal a week, you'll have a lower carbon footprint than someone who spent $50 on groceries, but maybe ate meat every single day that week. And then finally, if you have really broad purchases, something like Amazon or a retail purchase, that's where we can get the least precise.

But we can give you an accurate estimate over multiple purchases. And the goal is to really give someone a sense of a carbon intuition, an understanding of what are my emissions from this type of activity relative to another type of activity so that I start to build the same kind of intuition we have for dollars or for calories.

A, a sense of what balance looks like. We're never gonna get to zero. There's no such thing as a zero carbon footprint life if you're living in society in 2023. But there is such thing as a balanced life and we can help people develop that sense of balance. So it's that understanding. Oh, my, my meals matter about as much as my transportation choices.

So my total gasoline bill is about the same as my total food purchasing carbon footprint. So the choices that I make in those areas are both pretty consequential. And within that, the choice of protein that I eat is the most consequential for food. So that's the one I'm gonna focus on. Or for travel, you know, gasoline is my biggest and flights are my second, so that's how I'm gonna spend my time and effort. Sometimes people might be surprised at the carbon impact of shopping. It's something we often don't think about. It's something like our clothing purchases actually have a lot of embedded carbon in them and can also be very consequential choices. And so then through, through using the app, people start to develop that carbon intuition.

They start to get personalized analytics on their emissions and their biggest opportunities for impact. The app then also allows you to discover ways to decarbonize different parts of your life. Everything from shopping secondhand for furniture to composting, to switching to a greener bank account, be as sort of large, sometimes surprising actions that can lower your carbon footprint dramatically and send a signal to companies that we want a more sustainable economy. And then finally, for all of the emissions that you can't avoid, there are offsets. And offsets are far from perfect. They're not a magic eraser. But they are another way to express demand for carbon to be reduced and removed in our global carbon economy.

And we help people pick the most effective carbon projects and then offset exactly what they consume. So it becomes a bit of a feedback mechanism. So if you have a lower carbon footprint that month. You'll, you'll pay less in carbon offsets. If you have a higher carbon footprint, you'll pay more. We do have people who pay as little as $10 a month.

We have some people who pay a thousand dollars a month for their carbon footprint, and most people are, are safely in the middle, somewhere around 20 to $30 a month. 

[00:08:35] Tom Raftery: Okay. And this, I, I'm assuming the offsetting is voluntary. You don't have to. 

[00:08:40] Sanchali Pal: Completely voluntary, and it is the only part of the app that you pay for.

So the app is free to use. The community is also something you can engage in. You can meet other people in the app who are also lowering their carbon footprint by and living a more sustainable life. You can discover other tips and recommendations from people who have taken actions like the ones that you are, are taking.

And if you choose to offset then that costs money, but it is totally voluntary. 

[00:09:05] Tom Raftery: Okay, fantastic. And you said you've launched on the app store in the US and Canada, so North America. Are there plans to go beyond that? 

[00:09:15] Sanchali Pal: We would love to go beyond that. I think the biggest challenge is a data challenge.

We've worked really hard to build our carbon models on carbon accounting for the US and Canada. And different countries have different carbon economies our different structures of their carbon economies. So we will probably expand beyond the us but just not yet. 

[00:09:35] Tom Raftery: Okay. And why? Why do our spending choices matter when it comes to global emissions?

Make that link for me. 

[00:09:47] Sanchali Pal: It is important to remember that the climate crisis is none of our faults. And an eco anxiety is real as well. Um mm-hmm. We don't want to be a tool that actually exacerbates people, people's eco anxiety. The tool is there to help you take action in ways that make your life better and make the world better. And so I think it, we start from a premise of the climate crisis is not your fault. And also it's not that every single thing you do matters. There's no way that all of us can fully decarbonize our lives by ourselves. We need policy. We need companies to change. However, that doesn't mean we're powerless.

And I think it's really important to, to recognize that, that number, that global emissions number, that 65% of global emissions are directly influenced by household spending. And essentially carbon emissions are directly correlated to GDP and, and to incomes. So that means that higher income people have the highest opportunity for lowering emissions while also maintaining a high standard of living. And that is exactly what the UN's I P C C report said last year, 2022 that the people across the world in the top 10% of global incomes mm-hmm. Are those who have the greatest opportunity for lowering global emissions.

And if you live in the US that means people who make over $60,000 a year. So if you make over $60,000 a year, you have more influence than most people in the world over our shared climate trajectory. And with that opportunity we also need to focus on the choices that matter most. So if you have, you know, only two or three things that you can do, say in a month, really, well, what are those two or three things gonna be?

You want to focus on the things that are at the intersection of achievable and impactful, and that's what the tool helps you do. 

[00:11:46] Tom Raftery: Okay. And how does it help you do that? For example you mentioned clothing has a pretty high impact on, on your carbon footprint. Does it, does it, for example, say this manufacturer as opposed to this clothing manufacturer?

Or is it a question of saying, well, maybe you should consider going to a thrift store next time, Tom, instead of, you know, or how, how, how does it help make those choices? 

[00:12:13] Sanchali Pal: Yeah, so we're starting to incorporate more insights into the product. That means that when you see your data, let's say you'll go into your carbon footprint for the month and you'll see my largest carbon purchases were clothing and restaurants.

Mm-hmm. Then it'll suggest. People like you who have this kind of carbon footprint are taking this action to lower, lower it. And what you might find is you might find an article or a guide to help you understand that type of action. So that might be something like people like you are starting to shop secondhand.


You can see the carbon impact of shopping secondhand. If you, if you shop secondhand, your carbon footprint would be 50% lower from your next clothing purchase. And then, you might find an article that helps you understand how do I start shopping secondhand? What, are the key things I need to know to start doing that?

In some cases we are starting to incorporate some vendor level estimates where we have confidence that there's a lower carbon alternative. Mm-hmm. So, for instance, in the case of a supermarket versus a farmer's market, we have confidence that a farmer's market has lower carbon than a supermarket.

So we can suggest that to you in your actions. But company level estimates are quite hard and we wanna be a bit careful about incorporating them. So generally what you'll find is you'll find alternative spending options or principles. It might be something like secondhand shopping or it might actually be something as specific as switching your bank account from a Chase account to a Capital One account could have a huge carbon impact.

That's something that was surprising to me to learn that our bank accounts have a large carbon impact. So that kind of guidance is in the app. 

[00:13:50] Tom Raftery: And talk me through that. Is it because the different banks have different policies on where they invest your money? 

[00:13:58] Sanchali Pal: Exactly. Large retail banks lend against our deposits against their retail deposits, and the biggest banks tend to lend quite a bit of money to fossil fueled companies.

In fact for instance, Chase as one of the banks that's lent the most to fossil fuel companies, and over the last several years, the total amount that banks have lent to fossil fuel companies could have been enough to decarbonize our entire grid. So this is large magnitudes of, of capital that we're talking about.

Really significant when it comes to global emissions and our, and our shared trajectory. So there's been a big push in the last few years as more research on this has come out to inform consumers about how their deposits are being used potentially against their will. You know, many of us don't wake up in the morning saying, I wish that my savings account would fund fossil fuels.

It's just something that happens without us knowing about it. And so what we do is we reveal information in the app to users about where their bank is investing. So if you are banking with one of the banks. There's 12 banks who have funded the most fossil fuels in the last 10, 15 years. And so if you are banking with one of those banks, we'll let you know and we'll tell you what your impact savings could be by switching to a bank that's not one of those 12.

And then we'll provide some guidance on, on which those banks are. So that's, that is one of those actions that might be surprising. You can do it once, you can have a huge impact every year from now on by, by doing that one action. 

[00:15:24] Tom Raftery: Yeah. Fascinating. And talk to me about the offsets, because offsets have got a very mixed reputation, shall we say.

There are, I mean, there, there's been several I, I don't wanna use the word scandals, but there's been several exposes, shall we say, of instances where offsets have been shown to be shall we say generously, shady at best? How do we get around that? I mean, what, what are you doing to make sure that the offsets are certified legitimate?

How do I know the river by offsets through Commons that they will, that they're permanent, for example. So if I were to buy offsets in a forest somewhere what happens if there's a wildfire and the forest burns down, all that carbon goes up into the air. 

[00:16:18] Sanchali Pal: That's a really important perspective to have.

I think the scariest thing to me about offsets is that people think they're perfect and that can cause a lot of problems. There is no such thing as a perfect offset. If you would like to reduce emissions or you wanna know that they've gone down, you probably need to do it yourself. To be a hundred percent confident that that's gonna happen.

So whether that's you making sure that, you know, I did not drive my car today, so I know that those emissions were not released. That's, that's an example of something you can have full confidence in. But paying someone else to protect a forest somewhere else in the world, there's definitely risks associated with that.

That doesn't mean it's not worth doing. And I think that's also a really important point, is that we do need to protect our natural capital. That's such an important carbon sink for us is our trees, our forests. Our soil, our oceans, they're incredibly valuable resources to protect. And right now, in the absence of our economy, protecting them, carbon offsets are creating an incentive for people to pay to protect them, which is really critical.

Or to subsidize really effective technologies that can reduce or remove carbon, like direct air capture or mineralization. These are really early stage technologies that have shown promise for scale. And in the models that our experts and, and the I P C C are developing, they're going to play an important role in our in reduce getting us to net zero by by 2050.

However, there's risks associated with novel technologies. They are not perfect yet. And all of those things are critical as someone is developing an offset strategy. So we tell our users to think about offsets like you would think about stocks, you hope they're gonna go up into the right, you hope they're gonna sink all of the carbon that they can, but you're not a hundred percent sure.

You wouldn't buy into a stock and know for sure that it was gonna give you a return. However, if you build a diversified portfolio, you have a higher chance of maximizing your return, and we do that with offsets as well, so we curate the best offsets that we can find. Our team does a lot of diligence on them.

We also collaborate with other major rigorous buyers, large companies or nonprofits. We share our research openly on those projects. You can find our evaluations of our projects on our website, very detailed evaluations of them. And so we pick the best ones that we can find in each of the categories that we see are critical to get us to NetZero by 2050 oceans, forestry, soil and then longer term, more permanent carbon removals.

And then we construct a portfolio for our customers, just like the best corporate buyers are doing for themselves and one that balances risk across things like technology risk, natural capital risk additionally. All of those things are things that we look at. And we balance that portfolio. We're currently at $25 a ton.

Over time, we'd like to increase the price of that portfolio. Mm-hmm. Because longer duration carbon removals, more permanent carbon removals are more expensive. And as we move closer and closer to 2050, we need to increase the proportion of permanent removals in our portfolio. So that is the way that we approach offsetting is not as a perfect magic eraser but a way to express demand for effective climate projects around the world in a way that can maximize impact.

[00:19:31] Tom Raftery: Okay. And what do you say to the argument that it's a bit like speeding tickets or parking tickets? You know, it's just a it, it's you, you can pay and then you can park wherever you want, as long as you're willing to pay the fine, or you can go as fast, you can drive as fast as you want, as long as you're willing to pay the speeding ticket.

Similarly, with offsets, you can pollute as much as you want, as long as you're willing to, you know, pay for the credits. 

[00:19:56] Sanchali Pal: I think the idea of paying for pollution is really challenging. And in fact one of the biggest issues with it is the underlying inequality and injustice associated with it. The climate crisis is fundamentally an issue of inequality.

And that's why thinking about our spending and our incomes is a really critical part of thinking about how we tackle the climate crisis because those of us with more means are also the ones who will be most protected in the case of crisis. And so I think a lot personally, and we think a lot together about how offsets cannot just be a license to pollute.

They must be associated with accountability for reduction. And that's why in our offset subscription, it's tied to your actual emissions. So if you emit more, you pay more. If you emit less, you pay less. You can't just pay a flat amount and say that you are fully climate neutral. Ideally everyone is using it kind of like a tax on carbon.

A way to regulate their own emissions. Now, of course, this is fully voluntary and this is still pretty new, so not everyone wants to pay exactly what they emit. You know, you might look in the app and find that you know, it's a few dollars more than you're comfortable paying. We do allow people to set a max in the app of their comfort for paying.

So if you say, you know, I'm willing to pay my full footprint up to $20 a month or up to $50 a month, but beyond that, I'm not, I'm not willing to pay it. We do give people that option in the app because this is fully voluntary. Ultimately we would want there to be regulation to say that you know, carbon is disclosed.

At the point of purchase and is paid for by companies and is accounted for in consumer decisions as well. But in the absence of that being true right now, we have a way of revealing that carbon impact and allowing people to transact in the carbon economy even before the government has, has given us the information to do so.

[00:21:50] Tom Raftery: Okay. What about things like gamification, leaderboards, all that kind of thing? Are you building that in? Have you built that in as well to the app?

[00:22:00] Sanchali Pal: We do a little bit of it. We have found that with something like climate, which is people are so intrinsically motivated there's very mission-driven element to it that people tend to like more of the collaborative atmosphere than the competitive one.

It can be a bit scary to be able to sh to show someone your else, your carbon footprint. Again, it's fully voluntary. We wanna encourage people to be part of this community. So your carbon footprint is for you to look at. No one else can see it when you're participating in the app. However, what people can see is the actions you've taken to live a more sustainable life. And so people can go to your profile and they can see Oh, Sanchali has started eating more plant-based. She started grading her bank account. She's flying less. She's offsetting her flights. They can see all of the actions I've taken. And those badges are something that you can see and look at for others. And we're starting to build in more community elements. As I mentioned, you can see tips from others. In the app you can see a feed of how other people are taking action, get inspired. And we're starting to allow folks who have more experience, who have expertise in living sustainably to actually share that guidance with others in the community.

And there's some light gamification, things like, you know, with your own data, you can see your changes over time, how you compared this month versus last month. You get a little, you know, green badge when you're doing better than the month before and you can feel really good about yourself. So we're definitely leaning into some of those elements where we see things that are working in other areas and, and helping people.

Get that little boost of adrenaline from, from living more sustainably too. 

[00:23:34] Tom Raftery: Okay, cool. And it's, it's very much a consumer focused app. Are there any plans to go to enterprises and businesses as well with it? Or are you gonna stick with the consumer focus? 

[00:23:47] Sanchali Pal: I think we do see a big opportunity in the consumer space.

There are a lot of carbon accounting solutions now for the corporate side, which is excellent. And it's an area that needs to move quickly so that there's better data [00:24:00] on corporate emissions and more accountability for those companies to take action. And hopefully we can be the place that actually helps share that information with consumers.

So when consumers are curious, what are the companies I'm buying from actually doing and how can I use my demand as a tool to share them what I would like. That's the platform that we're building. 

[00:24:22] Tom Raftery: Okay. And what are your kind of 3, 4, 5, 10 year plans? Where do you see yourself going? 

[00:24:31] Sanchali Pal: I think that five years from now, if we're successful, what we'll find is that the modern consumer will include carbon in their decision making.

You know, it's, we include cost, convenience but carbon is something that's very difficult to include in our decisions right now. We as a generation of consumers and the generations before us had no carbon consciousness and that resulted in us building our lives in ways that we're out of balance with the earth's natural carbon cycle.

But we have this new generation of consumers coming in now. A group of consumers who's much more aware and much more motivated to align their spending choices with, with the earth. And I think what we'll find is that carbon intuition will be mainstream in a few years. It will be strange for anyone to make a purchasing choice without knowing the carbon footprint of that choice in a few years. Well, just like it would've been you know, it would be strange for someone to make a purchasing choice without knowing the dollar value of that, of that purchase. In much the same way. And I think that as we've seen, consumers have changed very quickly. The way we consume now is nothing like the way we consumed 10 years ago or, or a hundred years ago.

We also have seen that people have gotten very used to a new mobile app type. So there's lots of new mobile apps that didn't exist before. We have apps for managing our finances, for managing our health and fitness, for managing most recently our mindfulness and our meditation. And  next I think it's also gonna be that we'll all have a climate app on our phone, and hopefully that app will be Commons.

[00:26:07] Tom Raftery: Nice. Nice. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Sanchali. Is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I had or, any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of? 

[00:26:22] Sanchali Pal: I think that I think one thing that, that we haven't touched on is that there can be a lot of skepticism about the power of individual choices and rightfully so, you know, a no one person can change our climate trajectory by themselves.

And at the same time, I think it's the only thing that ever has, you know, as a, a group of people making choices differently is the only thing that ever has changed our, our life on earth. And so it's, I think it's a really important perspective. And of course I feel skepticism and despair and powerlessness just like anyone else when it comes to thinking about this, really daunting thing we have to do. But I also feel hope and inspiration and confidence knowing that if we study history, humans change all the time. Um mm-hmm. And we change our behavior all the time and how we live all the time. It was actually one thing I'll leave you with that was really just mind opening to me was realizing that over half of global emissions that humans have caused, have been emitted since the year I was born. So I was born in 1990 and over half of all human caused emissions have been emitted since the year 1990, and we have until 2050 to get to net zero. I'll be 60 in 2050. So l my lifetime my actual lifetime is, is the small blip in the Earth's experience that.

The worst of the climate crisis or the, the most consequential time for the climate crisis is happening. And for all of us, anyone who's alive on earth right now, that means that we are here in this very special window in which our shared future, planetary future is being determined. And I think that's, that's both like, pretty scary and also really empowering to know that The climate crisis isn't this thing that was, you know, way in the past or is going to be away in the future.

It's, it's a hundred percent our present. And we have this, this really golden window of opportunity and we need to use all of the tools that we have to make a difference, whether that's, you know, voting in the next election, organizing with your local community, writing a letter or petitioning a company to change their practices.

And using every spending choice we make two or three times a day to try to make that difference in demand signal. 

[00:28:51] Tom Raftery: Okay. Just a left field question before we wrap up. What about things like labeling of goods? Because right now very few items have their carbon footprint labeled on them. I know of one or two things that I can pick up and look at the carbon label on it.

Making that mandatory will surely make an enormous difference on, but on the other hand, would that, if it did happen, make your app redundant? 

[00:29:22] Sanchali Pal: I don't know that it would make it redundant. I would be thrilled if that happened. Regardless we need more carbon labels and more places. We need more carbon information.

I think there's still a place for a tool that helps people holistically make choices about their life and connect with others to see the impact we're having together on, on those choices. So, I'm not, I wouldn't be worried about it. I would be very excited. I, I do think realistically we're quite far away from all mainstream products, having carbon labels on them.

I would love to see regulation to change that, but the data is extremely challenging and, you know, doing a bottom up lifecycle carbon analysis of every product in the economy currently is extremely expensive and time consuming. And it's probably years, if not maybe a decade away from, from being in a place where we could have carbon labels on everything that are actually accurate and trustworthy.

And I think that we can, we don't have to wait for that. We can move a lot faster with a tool like this. It's not a hundred percent accurate. It's not going to be perfectly granular for every product, but it's going to be maybe 80% accurate, good enough to get a relative sense of the biggest impact drivers in your monthly carbon billing statement.

And so that's where I think we start. Mm-hmm. But at the same time Would love to see that happen and would love to see how we can help the Commons community advocate for that too. 

[00:30:46] Tom Raftery: Super great, Sanchali it's been fascinating. If people would like to know more about yourself or Commons or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

[00:30:57] Sanchali Pal: They can find us at thecommons.earth website or on Instagram or on Twitter

[00:31:05] Tom Raftery: Fantastic. That's been great Sanchali, thanks a million for coming on the podcast today. 

[00:31:10] Sanchali Pal: Thank you so much, Tom. This was really fun.

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